Why are insurance customers not digitally engaged?

Over the last few years, as consumers, we have so easily transformed the way we shop, get a cab, make payments and plan vacations. We revel at the ease of how we do things at the touch of the screen.

In an age of having everything at our fingertips, where the digital economy is most certainly a reality, insurance companies are struggling to get customers to digitally engage beyond claims.

If you are an insurer, to understand the reasons for this, you need to take yourself out of the corporate solution and cost cutting mindset and put yourself in the customer’s shoes.

It’s no secret that insurance is a grudge purchase, but one most people wouldn’t want to be without. In fact, conventional wisdom says that insurance is sold, not bought. Once that policy has been purchased and that bill paid, there is no requirement for your customer to interact further. They feel safe in the knowledge that they’re covered for that car accident, break in or leaky faucet damage.

How do you get customers to foster a digital relationship when insurance is a once off (grudge) purchase?

Do your customers want to create a login to a portal to get their policy document? Most probably not. They begrudgingly do it because they need the document. Will they go back to the website thereafter? Not likely – unless they have a claim and at that point, have to hunt for that login information again.

A 2016 study found that “insurer websites are not keeping up with customer expectations” – only 55% of insurance customers said they “definitely will” return to the website for service needs.*

How can you effectively market to these customers, when they aren’t seeing the marketing real estate on your website?

The answer lies in understanding the customer experience. If you make it easy, customers will convert to digital communications. Once they’ve done that, every other digital engagement puzzle piece will fall into place. So, what’s the easiest place to start? Start with making it super-convenient for customers to receive their important documents digitally – which includes the policy and the bill.

Let’s be honest, it’s cheaper to service a digital customer, but hoping and waiting for them to engage with you, is not the best approach. You need to pull them through to your digital channels,but the only way to do that is to add value to the customer first.

It’s time to think differently

Take note of the customer experience and start acting on the best solution to get customers into the digital sphere. Think about emailing documents to customers, rather than asking them to login to download them. That’s an immediate ease of use factor for the customer. You’ve removed the barrier of login requirements. Fostering that email relationship on important documents is the start to engaging with customers digitally. Once you start sending a bill via email for example – and allow them to pay directly from that attached document – you’re making it easier for the customer to interact.

Email is a fantastic first step in any digital relationship

Once trust is built with sending important documents over email, it becomes easier to market to customers via the channel and when required, pull them back to your website. In fact, analysis of our own clients’ open rates show that insurance emails with eBills attached get an average open rate of 73% vs 33% on email marketing emails** which makes them the perfect platform for customer engagement.

Creating that launch pad into digital engagement will help you leverage your customer relationships further and create happier, more profitable customers. It’s all about finding that balance with communication touch points in order to build trust and start that digital engagement relationship.

Mia Papanicolaou

Chief Operating Officer at Striata, The Americas

Mia heads up North, Central and South America operations, overseeing sales, client services and operations management. Mia is passionate about ensuring that all solutions implemented meet the best fit criteria for each client and deliver the best user experience for their customers. She is a regular blogger and speaker on the subject of email communication and has built a reputation as a thought leader.